Will Rogers

Thank you. Can you all hear me? I'm a little tall for this microphone. Thank you all for the opportunity to be here amongst a bunch of great speakers, conservationists, urban activist, and the opportunity to help put forward an initiative that I think it's very important to the future of conservation in America. For nearly four decades now, the Trust for Public Land has been a proud partner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We've been working on refuges across the country primarily helping them acquire land to create refuges or expand the refuges. But now I hope that with our land for people mission and the work we do in cities across the country creating parks, trails, greenways and playgrounds, and the services growing commitment to connect with urban populations, that we will open a whole new chapter in our partnership. I want to offer a big thanks to the conference organizers for including the Robert Michael Pyle reading in the background materials. When I first read his vendor tree about growing up in the '50s and '60s in the outskirts of Denver playing along the Highline irrigation ditch, one statement really stuck with me. And it's a statement that showed up in the current reading, it's a statement I've repeated over the years and I think it goes to the heart of the people nature connection and why it's so important and also highlights the impact of Robert Michael Hyatt what he calls local extinction. He wrote, "those who care can serve, those who don't know, don't care. What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never known a wren?" With the release of the vision conserving this vision wildlife refuge for the next generation it made clear that the perspective on the importance of the people nature connection and also with the challenging trends we face. At the Trust for Public Land we've always seen people as the overlooked species. That cost us in several ways. Not only to people without that connection with nature in their human habitat suffer less healthy lives, but they also are much less likely to be the constituency that will support other species and wild nature. So we see the services move to connect with more people in more places as an important complement to your long standing mission to protect fish and wildlife including the most vulnerable populations and the most pristine habitats in the country. We applaud the service for including the needs of people and cities as part of your vision for the future. Your approach recognizes the fact that nature and the outdoors begin as soon as we open our front door. Those small and closer to home connections, natural areas, even if those places are not the crowns of the continent can help build the conservation constituency of the future. I want to share a few thoughts of why this connection in cities between people and nature is more important now then ever and then share some of our observations on what and how of urban conservation in the twenty first century. Now, as conservationists and outdoor enthusiasts and as a nation, we are featuring some challenging trends to maintain these connections between people and nature. It's a short list, it's depressing and I get through quickly but these are things we know, but we have to keep in mind and that's why it's more important now then ever. We've become an urban nature nation as we've all said, 80 percent of us live in metro areas. Our demographics are far more diverse with different ethnic and cultural relations with the land and outdoors. Dr. Murdock and Iantha Gann Wright will tell you more about this. We've paved over a lot of nature, 2 $3 million a year at the edges of our cities making our connection and interaction more difficult and leading to more of what is called local extinction. Our connection with the outdoors is diminishing for another region. The kids spend out untold hours in front of TVs or computers or smart phones making wild nature remotes and even scary for many. Federal studies show outdoor recreation activities is down to lack of time, convenience, and other competing activities. And, we also have a different kind of sprawl going on. We are becoming an obese nation. 1/3 of us are obese and that is leading to an epidemic level of diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. The average American male weighs about 40 pounds more today than he did a half century ago. I probably weighs 40 more pounds myself. And we are not a whole lot taller than we were 15 years ago so we have a problem there with public health. These kind of sobering trends have led me to think about what I call healthy human habitat and the critical role that natural connections at all scales and in all kinds of environments can play in helping us live healthy more fulfilling lives. Some of those connections have to be close to home. For urbanites that means neighborhood parks, gardens, even green school playgrounds with trees and gardens were kids can get their hands in the dirt and learn how things grow. To measure that close to home access the Trust for Public Land has come up with a simple metric, the 10 minute walk or a half mile. We believe that no one, no child should be more than a 10 minute walk from a park or garden or a natural area or safe place to play. Those that don't have that access, we think of them as an endangered species. There are plenty of cities where as many as 2/3 of the residents don't have that close to home access. Trust for Public Land developed an assessment tool called Park score that looks at the 50 largest cities in America and assesses Park proximity, the 10 minute walk and looks a park size and it looks at spending on parks. Minneapolis which came out at the top serves 95 percent of his resident. Charlotte serves well less than half. Unfortunately many cities are a lot closer to the Charlotte and then the Minneapolis and. Let me be clear. That is just one axis of healthy human habitat. Another is the diversity of open spaces and the experiences that a park system can provide. Particularly through larger destination parks and refuges where we can find a more critical mass of nature and other species. I loved your point earlier that we should not just look at our brand, we should be looking at our brand and this holistic leak so refuges go with destination and trails and greenways and urban gardens. It is a holistic solution to connect us with nature, not one agency approach. We are in this thing together and we are working to create a wonderful diversity of experiences for urban populations. The reality is that urban wildlife habitat is as much a refuge for people suffering from nature deficit disorder or needing a respite from urban life as it is for migrating birds looking for a stopover. Real success in reconnecting our species with nature will require both improved access through small local neighborhood parks and making sure the broader range of parks, restored river ways, recreational areas and urban wildlife refuges offer quality experiences to urban dwellers. This richer experience of nature is in short supply. In just about every city that we work in, there is a real lack of access of the kinds of natural habitats connection in connection with this in one life that are far more common and easily found in rural communities. That is arguably enough of the why. You don't need any more statistics or rhetoric to convince you that what we are talking about here and the initiative of service is incredibly important. A lot of us came to our careers because of our connection with nature and with the outdoors. Let me talk about the what of human habitat a healthy human habitat and what that connection looks like and how we will get there and how we will get there in the twenty first century. To illustrate what and how, I will cite three examples and give a range of opportunity for the people nature connection in urban areas from the new vision while life refuge to city scale urban ecological restoration to more intimate efforts that aim to restore fragments of nature where ever the opportunity arises. I hope you will recognize woven through my comments might appreciate sure for the deep need as well as the real challenge that the service faces in conserving fish and wildlife resources in urban areas. This appreciation comes from having worked 4 decades and done over 1,000 different projects in and around cities across America. In this denser, more complex, land constrained in stakeholder which environment that we call cities. Getting conservation excuse me getting conservative rural communities to go along with these efforts is hard enough, but I want to suggest from our experience getting neighborhoods and Siri cities rallied around this is also a real challenge. Let's start at one end of the scale, creating a new urban wildlife refuge. We recognize that create a new refuges is a high bar for an agency that faces lean Financial Times and we are all facing those Financial Times. All talk a little more about funding in just a minute when I get into the howl of all of this. Not only that, but you are already managing a huge amount of land and resources. Nevertheless, we have seen the remarkable range of technical expertise, programming and other resources that a new refuge can bring to urban communities and the unique pride that comes with recognition and investment by the federal government, pride in your backyard is a really special place worth protecting. We saw this and more play out in the creation of the national wildlife refuge in Albuquerque New Mexico where we've partnered for the service. For 10 years the lower to middle income community on the edge of the city sought to protect their backyard and their River, the Rio Grande. This is part of Albuquerque without much in the way of parks or public access to the Rio Grande River. A local dairy farm on the Rio Grande that offered a great opportunity for conservation and for new refuge. That land is located within a one hour drive of 60 percent of the state's population. Fortunately, the urban vision of the service with leadership from the regional level, from the Director, the generous helping of enthusiasm Secretary Salazar coincided wonderfully with the vision of the local community at just the right time. Bolstered by a 5 million dollar commitment from the county, that always helps. What comes out of this tremendous effort? A lot you can hang your hat on. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the face of conservation in the city of over 1 million people. The service is already reaching a diverse set of constituency neighbor, children other urban dwellers tourist, people from around the state. 570 acres will be protected along the Rio Grande, 261 acres will be purchased by the service and other public agencies and the service and other partners will pursue conservation and restoration of the Rio Grande in its native habitat. The refuge will connect with the El Camino national historic Trail in Albuquerque. A sixteenth century trade route that connected Mexico, Mexico City with Texas and New Mexico. Lend him what are conservation funding was leveraged in more than 1 1 from other sources, county, state, local and national Fish and my life foundations but the service has full ownership and management, many agencies, many people want this refuge to succeed. There is already an active friends group working with programming and outreach and Terri is in the audience some place. Raise your hand. There you are. I also want to recognize Jennifer Owens White who is the refuge manager and doing a wonderful job for a refuge that's not even really open yet. You guys rock! National public land is being celebrated on Friday with bilingual outreach broadening the national conversation about consecration. Programming targeted to the next generation it in before the formal opening of the refuge. For example, the Academy senior class learning about hydrology, field journal he and surveying for plants and wildlife. A partnership with Mountain View elementary school resulted in the native fish in the classroom program connecting with the fifth grade class and this is just the beginning of a long term impact that will come out of this new urban refuge. I really believe this is how we are going to raise the next generation of conservationists. Having the resource there and figuring out how to connect. At the other end of the spectrum from a brand new refuge, efforts that seek to talk a little more nature into the existing green spaces the border our city streets. One example is our work in Los Angeles along the river loop where the creek reaches the Los Angeles River. It's a 2 acre product and easily could have been on other urban park leveled off, planted with grass and a few trees that would have satisfied the need for an urban park in that community but the community members and the partners and our staff had a bigger vision. They wanted to me sure was connected so there's a 1 mile trail that connects the 2 acre park to neighborhoods and what will people find when they arrive? The 2 acre site known as the confluence is a uniquely important slice of undeveloped land in an intensely urban environment. Its location at the junction of two rivers meet that a natural habitat hotspot so the project partners committed to maximizing the values on the property using native planning designed to attract birds and butterflies and other species. It will create interpretive signage so visitors learn about the natural settings they are enjoying. Settings that many from that neighborhood have never seen before. I smiled to think a visitor to this park might see something new and unexpected that will have the capacity to make this 2 acre property seem a lot larger by engaging the heart and the imagination. After all, Robert Pyle points out it only takes a butterfly's. Finally, I want to talk about the most complex and ambitious way to approach this work and that's the city wide scale. Our organization along with many other public and private entities is fostering recovery and resilience in the areas impacted by super storm Sandy. We are tackling this work through a new partnership with the city of New York and Columbia and Drexel University's. And we are doing research plan and implementation of new green infrastructure projects from large wetland complexes to riverfront parks along the 520 miles of New York City shoreline and we are starting with the two areas hardest hit by Sandy, Jamaica Bay and Staten Island placing emphasis on using natural systems like wetlands to protect all New York City's residents from people to great blue Heron's. We have had a head start in our work because of past partnership with New York State. We have protected and restored hundreds of acres of wetlands over the year, de facto refer just now. On the western edge of Staten Island using GIS planning from our Heron's report from years ago. As it turns out, these communities punctuated by wetlands actually suffered a whole lot less during the storm then those that did not have that benefit. So we are continuing work on Staten Island, much more remains to be done and remarkably even in America's largest city the acres of wetlands and other undeveloped lands that are still available, yes, they need restoration and they need work, but they are still there and available although hundreds have been purchased since stand the end really it's a race against time to type much a that land as we can. We think of this restoration of urban green infrastructure and it offers a profound and lasting approach to assure our cities are livable, resilient and they are safe places for people and also offer that rich connection with nature just blocks from busy streets and industrial charity's. The scientific expertise and other assets of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are already being brought to bear in the sandy response effort and will be a linchpin to this kind of deep urban ecological restoration if we have any chance of success. So finally, let me talk a little bit about the how of getting all of this done. Articulate in cities. Beyond the big price tag for urban land, the difficulty of finding large tracts of land and the likelihood that there is contamination or at least the need for restoration there are a number of other elements that would govern success. First of all,, standards and metrics. We at the Trust for Public Land to help distinguish good parts from great parks and to provide its way to improvement long ago created criteria and standards for an excellent urban park system. It's been exciting to see the service uses concept and create a whole new set of standards for great urban refuges. Managing these places requires a different set of criteria and a different mental model. The service's new standards of excellence squarely named these differences and I think appropriately set expectations for the management of human uses as well as habitats. You recognize the context matters in conservation. Measurability is important. There are many great metrics within the standards, but one thing we need to remember is it's not just about the delivery and not just about the actions we take, it's also about the quality of what we deliver and the outreach or programming compelling, is the experience leading to the connection we are looking for and are people coming back for more? The qualitative is hard to measure, but it is central to success. Another factor, lean into local communities. I spoke earlier about the unique challenges of working in urban areas in part due to the density of constituencies and competing interests. The flipside of that is the incredible power of a motivated urban constituency. A local agenda means building partnerships with civic organizations, businesses, nonprofits who share your vision. All three of the examples I provided required multi level partnerships from the community level and layers of government. We cannot stress enough the importance and the power of partnerships to build consensus for urban conservation work. That's one reason why we embrace the concept of participatory tori design and if we could wave a magic wand and put a park or garden or a playground or refuge on the ground instantly we would not do it. The process should go through and the engagement that happens in the sense of ownership and stewardship that come out the other end are vital. Once you have genuine and committed partners we've seen from experience many moving stories of urban neighborhoods rising as one to pull off seemingly impossible projects. Everything I have read and seen from the urban refuge initiative suggestion fully understand and embrace this so take this to a partnership as reinforcing the rightness of what is clearly in your and tended approach. Many partners who are here in this room. Education and programming, just having access to refuges and parks is often not enough. It's what goes on there to attract and engage people that will lead to attendance and connection. We applaud the services are recognizing this and the way you shape your partnerships, would move. Many of which seem to attend to this issue. Similarly your standards also reflect this understanding. One key new wants is making sure that materials are bilingual, being responsive when someone said earlier, you have to be responsive to your neighborhood. There is no one size fits all. I would suggest in addition, both in terms of partnership and responsiveness that you think about hiring people from the communities which you are trying to reach out. It has a wonderful impact, we've seen it work in our projects as well. There was a myth in California that the Hispanic population did not carry care as much about parks and open spaces but the reality is after several of the last bond initiatives in California as FedEx way outvoted the rest of us when it came to a commitment to funding parks and open spaces particularly in urban areas so we have constituencies out there that care deeply and we have to think about how we best address those constituencies. Finally,, with public funding, all of this is for not if we don't have the resources to which move ahead and it's particularly challenging right now. There are a lot of arcane interesting funding sources out there and whether we are working with HUD or getting grants, there are a lot of things that we as an organization focused on but a couple that are critical of being in danger. We have to continue the important federal work we are doing in Washington to support the land and what are conservation fund. It provides funding for states federal funding and states with local conservation. We also need to support the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Program which funds the restoration of underperforming urban parks. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is the granddaddy of federal funding for protecting our federal lands were so many recreate and on which so many species depend. The nearly 50 year old funding program take some proceeds from resource extraction and puts them back into protecting resources at the federal and state level. It was originally authorized $900 million if it was indexed who knows where would be today, but it has been rarely appropriated. It is some setting in 2015 and we and many other are particularly concerned and working to secure funding and reauthorization for this critical conservation funding source. Recent history suggests one thing's for sure, if Land and Water Conservation Fund continues to tread water at its current funding level it is unlikely urban projects like the national wildlife refuge will proliferate. These acquisitions are up against a broad swath of more conservation needs and wild places and have not tended to fare well in lean times. For this reason, it's really important that urban constituencies find their voice in support of Land and Water Conservation Fund as well as you par which was dead but found its way back into the budget for $20 million so we are copped his cautiously optimistic because it can provide an important source of funding for the initiatives that we all in this room sure about. Those are a few thoughts I hope are helpful as we think about how to make this initiative a success. We really want to see that happen. We want to partner with you on making these refuges happen. We think it's absolutely critical as you do as well. I want to thank each and every one of you for what you are doing to make a difference. I will close with a couple of quotes from that other Will Rogers, the cowboy humorist who never met a man he didn't like or said by land, they ain't making it anymore. One of my favorite quotes of his was even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. [Laughing] The other one is "never miss a good opportunity to shut up." Thank you very much. [Applause]